britneys 9th husband's Journal: Hot Gasoline: WOULD YOU LIKE SOME CHEESE WITH YOUR WHINE?

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The California attorney general's office has launched an investigation of gas stations and truck stops selling "hot" fuel to consumers without making adjustments for changes in fuel volume.

Tom Dressler, a spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer, said Monday that his office will investigate whether any state laws or regulations were broken. The attorney general also plans to recommend how the problem can be fixed.

The action comes in response to a story from The Kansas City Star, which also appeared in Sunday's Star-Telegram, describing how gasoline and diesel retailers profit from selling fuel that is hotter than the 60-degree standard agreed to by the industry and government regulators nearly a century ago.

Drawing on a fuel-temperature database compiled by a federal agency, and adjusting for state-by-state fuel temperatures and consumption patterns, The Star estimated that hot fuel costs U.S. consumers $2.3 billion a year. The financial cost to consumers in California, which uses more gasoline than any other state, was $500 million.

The Star's series also described methods that could be used to address the problem.

In Hawaii, for example, the state requires that retailers dispense 234 cubic inches per gallon, rather than the 231 cubic inches per gallon dispensed in the rest of country, to compensate for hot fuel. The state assumes its fuel is sold at an average temperature of 80 degrees, 20 degrees above the standard.

In Texas, fuel tanks average 78 degrees, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

In Canada, where cold fuel once cost retailers money, the industry supported a voluntary program to retrofit pumps to automatically adjust volumes to account for temperature change. The Star estimated such a technological fix would cost $1.4 billion to $1.9 billion in the U.S.

"It's a simple principle. You should get what you pay for," said Dressler, adding that it was "most disturbing" that the major oil companies and other retailers were "nickel-and-diming" Californians while posting record profits.

The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil industry, has argued that the hot-fuel problem is "negligible" and not worth fixing, citing the high cost of retrofitting the country's gas and diesel pumps. The API said that consumers would be confused by fuel dispensers that adjust the volume of fuel pumped for temperature variation.

Dressler said the attorney general rejected the notion that U.S. consumers would get confused by purchasing gas adjusted for temperature.

"Our consumers are just as smart as those north of the border," he said.

The announcement of the inquiry followed letters sent by The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights to the attorney general, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

"It's outrageous that Americans, who are already paying too much for their gasoline so oil companies can make billions in profits, cannot rely on an honest measurement for every gallon of gasoline they pump," wrote Jamie Court, president of the Santa Monica-based advocacy group, in his letter to Schwarzenegger.
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